How it works
- Root Athletic is an adaptive strength and conditioning app that builds and runs training for individuals and teams.
- It adapts to each athlete’s own training history using RPE (rate of perceived exertion), acute-to-chronic load, and recovery.
- It’s built for athletes and teams without a dedicated S&C coach — and for busy S&C coaches managing several teams and large squads.
Individualization
Good S&C is individual: the right exercises for the athlete’s training age and experience, the right weight progression from their own history, the right volume and intensity for how recovered they are. A coach can do this by hand for one or two athletes — rarely for a full team, let alone several. Root individualizes every athlete automatically. A team can follow one shared programme while it adapts to each athlete as they progress. The hard part — matching training to every athlete — happens automatically: Root turns that complexity into something simple, and simplicity breeds the consistency that builds performance.
Strength
Programming
Root generates a custom, editable programme from the athlete’s sport, age, experience and available equipment. It’s built around the four core movement patterns — hip hinge, squat, pull, push — plus sport-specific work. The number of exercises follows age, exercise difficulty follows experience, and the sport drives the sport-specific selection. Programmes are fully editable by exercise, order and supersets, and can be created for an individual or a team.
Adaptive weights
The algorithm suggests an optimal working weight for each exercise from the athlete’s current level, training history, weight-progression logic, past RPEs and the evolving estimated 1RM for that exercise. Athletes can override the suggestion, but the algorithm keeps steering them toward the optimal load to avoid under- or over-loading.
RPE autoregulation
The cornerstone of adaptive weights: athletes log how hard each exercise felt (RPE). The algorithm assumes beginners under-rate difficulty because they don’t yet know their true maximum; as that sense sharpens with training, their 1RM estimates get more precise.
Levels
Root has five levels (mesocycles) of a linear periodization based on Prilepin’s work on the volume and intensity that best drive adaptation. Athletes can follow the mesocycles automatically or switch the levels manually when they need. Levels apply to the compound lifts; isolation work is treated as accessory, with its own volume and intensity.
| Level | Duration | Sets × reps | RPE | % 1RM |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 week | 3 × 7 | 5 | 68% |
| 2 | 3 weeks | 3 × 6 | 6 | 74% |
| 3 | 3 weeks | 3 × 5 | 7 | 79% |
| 4 | 3 weeks | 3 × 4 | 8 | 84% |
| 5 | 1 week | 3 × 2 | 9 | 92% |
Example
A U18 intermediate footballer lets the app generate a strength programme — football, intermediate, U18, free weights only. The athlete starts at Level 1 with 7 reps at difficulty 5. On the first training, the app asks him to lift any safe weight, which calibrates optimal weights for next training. From the next session on, the app seeds each exercise with the optimal weight for difficulty 5 at Level 1 (when levels change the app recalculates optimal weights according to the level intensity). The athlete lifts and logs the perceived difficulty — say 7, because it felt heavy that day. The app recalculates the 1RM estimate and lowers the optimal weight for next time. If instead he log a lower difficulty, or earn a progression bump, the app raises the optimal weight for that particular exercise next session.
Conditioning
Programming
Structured to train every key energy system in a sensible ratio: base work (Zone 2, aerobic), intervals (glycolytic) and sprints (alactic), split roughly 80% base / 20% intervals and sprints. Athletes can do it however they prefer — run, bike, air bike, and so on.
Logging
Athletes with a sports watch get conditioning sessions synced automatically, with difficulty (RPE) classified from the heart-rate data. Without a watch, they log each session manually, including RPE.
Intensity
Root encourages breathing cues over watch HR zones. The app therefore recommends training according to breathing patterns that are the same for all exercises, are always up-to-date according to the athlete's physiological state, and do not require a current maximum HR. Zone 2: easy breathing (RPE 3–4) where you can still speak in full sentences. Intervals: hard mouth breathing (RPE 7–8) where talking is difficult. Sprints: maximal effort (RPE 10), gasping for air.
Levels
Five conditioning levels set by how much time the athlete wants to spend each week. In-season, pick a lower-volume level; off-season, a higher one.
| Level | Base | Intervals | Sprints |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 60min | 15min | 1× |
| 2 | 90min | 20min | 1× |
| 3 | 150min | 30min | 1× |
| 4 | 210min | 45min | 1× |
| 5 | 240min | 60min | 1× |
Example
The same U18 player is in-season with 2–3 sessions plus a weekend match. Because games are chaotic and unstructured, he only needs to maintain a conditioning base, so he picks Level 1. Off-season, when the goal is to build conditioning for next season, he moves to Level 3 or 4 with the same structured programme but at higher volume.
Recovery
Recovery score
The recovery score combines last night’s resting heart rate with 7-day fatigue trends to surface accumulated fatigue that a single day can hide. It reads like a traffic light: green = push, yellow = maintain, red = recover, rest or reduce.
Automated nocturnal HR
Athletes who wear a sports watch or sleep/fitness tracker overnight get their nocturnal resting heart rate synced automatically. Root works with any device that syncs nocturnal HR to the phone’s health app. Watch users also get sleep-debt and sleep-consistency metrics.
Manual morning HR (in beta)
Athletes without a watch will be able to record morning resting heart rate using just the phone camera. The recovery score works the same way, without the sleep metrics.
Example
The same U18 player knows sleep drives recovery and performance, so he tracks it with a sports watch or sleep tracker. Each morning Root syncs his nocturnal resting HR into the recovery score. Using recovery and acute load, the AI coach suggests how to train that day: on a low score it might advise skipping strength, dropping the intensity level, or an easy Zone 2 run; on a high score, it may suggest pushing the working strength level or taking on high-intensity intervals to make use of the good recovery.
Load management
Strength and conditioning each have their own load-management bar showing whether the athlete is detraining, maintaining or overreaching. It’s based on the acute-to-chronic workload ratio — recent training load against a longer-term baseline. Load management is central to how Root works, and athletes are encouraged to train by it.
Other metrics
Root automatically tracks estimated 1RM for the deadlift family and VO₂max, and combines them into an Athletic Score and a Fitness Age. VO₂max comes from a synced sports watch, or can be entered manually from a lab, beep or Cooper test. Root also tracks the relative balance between the four compound patterns and shows a muscle-imbalance chart, so athletes and coaches can see what to focus on.
AI coach
Root’s AI coach explains what your metrics, data and programmes mean, and suggests a sensible focus for the day from your training history and recovery (where available). It’s there for clarity and trust, not control: it makes no training decisions on its own, and it only interprets established sports-science methodology, coaching frameworks and your own data in the app.
Methodology
Root is built on established strength and conditioning methodology. Every metric and feature cites, inside the app, the sources and norms it’s based on — so athletes and coaches can check the reasoning for themselves.
Athletes, coaches and teams
Anyone can be an athlete and a coach at once. Use Root for yourself, coach individual athletes, or build programmes for a team. Each athlete can have one individual coach and join one team (same or different coach). Athletes on a team programme follow it and can’t change its exercises.
Sharing
From the browser dashboard at rootathletic.com — same login as the app — athletes can share their profile with an outside viewer such as another coach, doctor or physiotherapist. Coaches can share a team or an individual athlete the same way.
Subscription
Level 1 is free, with full functionality except open chat with the AI coach. A subscription unlocks all levels and open AI-coach chat. There’s no team or club subscription — each athlete covers their own account.
Example: a club S&C programme
The biggest challenges in amateur-club S&C are adherence and consistency, and biggest obstacles are program simplicity and time players have for extra training. A practical club programme has to respect both — and Root can deliver it across several age categories and hundreds of players in a simple yet individualized way.
Athlete experience. Sort each team into just two groups by training experience: beginners and advanced (squat > 1x of bodyweight). Each group gets its own programme, and every athlete within it progresses on their own ability.
Athlete age. Cap levels by age: keep U14 athletes at Level 1 to learn proper form first, let U16 progress to Level 2–3 to build, and open the full mesocycle range up to Level 5 only for U18 and older.
Programming. Use the programme builder for sport, age and experience-specific programmes — e.g. U18 beginners (Programme 1) and U18 advanced (Programme 2). For the advanced group you might add a Programme 3 focused on power or unilateral work, for those with the time and will to do more.
In- and off-season. In-season, generate a single 30-minute maintenance strength session players fit in before or after team training. Off-season, generate for example two complementary 60-minute sessions to build strength and power at higher volume.
Training. Athletes complete the programmes whenever their week and recovery allow, in any gym the athlete has access to. The only aim is to finish them while keeping load and recovery scores green, push a little when scores are yellow, or dial back when they’re red.
Return from illness. The athlete stays in the same group and programme but resets to Level 1 to re-ramp load over a week or two, depending on how they feel.
Team management. Coaches see every athlete’s scores in the app at the gym or in the browser dashboard — past training, load, recovery, muscle imbalances and more — so they can decide who to focus on, who to slow down to avoid injury, and who to push. A team or individual athlete can be shared with another club coach or physiotherapist when needed.
Adherence. Athletes are intrinsically motivated to keep their load scores green and to watch that work translate into performance metrics — reinforced by coach visibility and by seeing the effort their teammates are putting in.
With this simple setup, one S&C coach can run multiple teams and hundreds of players efficiently with each athlete on an individualized programme, and the coach with an actionable overview of every athlete and team.
Want to see how Root compares to other strength & conditioning platforms? Read the comparison →
- Root Athletic is a training tool, not a medical device. Its scores and suggestions support training decisions — they are not medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Consult a qualified physician before starting a new training programme, and if you have a health condition, injury or symptoms.
- Train within your ability and with good technique. Where possible, have a qualified coach supervise — especially young or novice athletes.
- VO₂max and other estimates are approximate and depend on your device; they are not laboratory measurements.
- Recovery and readiness scores are training-readiness guidance, not a medical assessment.
Start free.
Free Level 1. Unlock all Levels for $4.99/month or $39.99/year.
